The Weight of Farewell
by Arabella Thorne
Summary: A tale simply told: Arwen at the Grey Havens, overwhelmed by the pain of her mother's departure, runs blindly from the Grey Havens, alone.
1. Default Chapter

The breeze from the sea blows steadily and fragrant with seaweed and a slight hint of fish. My dress pulls against my legs as if trying to leave before me. My tears have mingled with the salt of the sea, drying on my face in stiffening lines and my hair wisps and whips around my face as if uncertain where to rest.   
  
The sun sets in a glory of orange and gold and I can barely see the tiny ship that cares my mother away.  
  
Mother!! How can you leave us!! I think tiredly for yet another time. How can you do this? How?!!!  
  
I swallow dryly and slowly turn to look at those left standing. My grandparents have wrapped themselves in their sorrow as if it was an impenetrable cloth of smoke and fog and walked slowly back into the lowering dusk. I do not see them nearby.  
  
My brothers and father stand immobile. They look so much alike, though father is slightly taller than Elladan and Elrohir. They are all dressed in various shades of gray and pale rose. In spite of mother's wishes, none of us could dress in cheerful colors. I did make her a bouquet of flowers from her favorite garden in Imladris, which I gave her as she stepped on the gangplank. She kissed me and then kissed the flowers, her eyes closed tightly. Father had preserved them perfectly on our long trip here to the Grey Havens.  
  
Grey Havens!! Grey is too weak a color for the all the emotion this place engenders. It should be called the Black Havens, a place of misery for all of us left behind!! I hate it here!!  
  
"Father, please, can we leave now?" I say finally, hating the petulant whine in my voice. "Ada, please, I can't bear it any more!"  
  
Father turns to me, his eyes as dead as last year's autumn leaves. My brothers lower their heads, Elrohir wipes his eyes and turns and moves a few feet away. Elladan and father just stand there. Feeling, no doubt, that one step back would finally acknowledge mother's departure irrevocably.  
  
I cannot bear this paralysis that has descended on us, and suddenly, I turn and run for the quay where our horses stand, their heads bowed as well.  
  
I do not acknowledge Cirdan or the other elves who helped set the ship free from its moorings. I grab my horse by the mane and vault onto her back. Heedless of how this must look, I kick my poor mare hard in the ribs and she takes off as if a hoard of orcs are on our tail.  
  
I gallop, maddened by my grief through the small town that surrounds the shipyards and take the road east into the deepening twilight. I know I made a promise to my mother to be brave for my father and brothers, but what difference does it make now? She is not here to see!! She's gone! Tears blur my sight. But sight is not necessary now and my horse, sure footed as is all her kind, runs like the wind. She knows the way home when it comes to that.  
  
In only a few moments, in the far distance, I hear the pound of hooves behind me, and a shout, but I urge my mount on even harder. I cannot bear their saddened faces or company now. And because I have the lead, the rider cannot catch me. I scream my anger to the wind and bow my head to the bobbing neck of the horse.  
  
Night descends and I am happy at last!! It is black and dark!! No color to let my thoughts stray from the despair in my heart.  
  
Mother! How can you leave me! Who am I going to talk to about things only a woman understands!! Matters of the heart? What happens when I marry!! Or have children!! Your experience cannot be replaced. Oh mother!!  
  
I race my poor horse to exhaustion. She stumbles and I finally stop her headlong rush. I slide off the poor beast, her sides heaving and her head drooping. I lay my cheek on her nose and feel her warm breath. Laying a hand on her neck, I wish I had my father's healing touch to give her relief. I bow my head and my tears fall again, dripping onto her hot, sweaty hide.   
  
I want to jump out of my skin, I am so unhappy. I walk off the road, having no idea where I am right now. Climbing up a small hill to my left, I sweep through the underbrush mindless of the brambles and scratches I receive. My mare follows behind listlessly.  
  
Once at the top, I can see how far I have ridden, the lights of the harbor mere little twinkles far away. I slump at the base of a tree, so tired, I cannot keep my eyes open. I curl up in the dry leaves and mindlessly sleep, too tired to even dream.  
  
  
To be continued............  
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	2. Father and daughter

I dreamed I was being held and rocked softly. Was I on the ship to the Undying Lands? Had I joined mother!? I smiled. Mother was coming back! I knew she could not leave us behind!! Our love would cure her and we could go right back to being a family again!  
  
Then I felt a warm drop hit my cheek. Ah, rain from the sea. Another drop fell and I sighed. Perhaps sea spray.  
  
I felt a hand run down my face gently and heard a deep sigh above me. The wind in the sails. And another warm drop from the sea.  
  
  
  
"Awake, my love, awake." The hand stilled on my forehead and I was pulled from the comfortable hold of sleep. I woke and stared up into my father's face. About to tear myself angrily away, he pressed me against him wordlessly, my cheek against the silk of his robe between his shoulder and chin. His face looked...I have never seen my father look this way, not even when they brought in mother's injured body. Lost. Distant. Vacant. I have no words for it or the terror it inspired in me.  
  
I struggled again, fruitlessly. His strength was relentless. I stared out into the lavender dark. The sun would be up soon. The tree above us rustled in a slight breeze from the sea and tendrils of fog drifted by, tentative ghosts trailing through the surrounding brush.  
  
Then I relaxed, hoping to get him to ease his grip about me. I sighed as if I was going to go back to sleep. The arm holding me slipped down to my elbow. I took a few more deep breaths and then sprang like a deer. I leaped away and stood facing him, panting slightly.  
  
"You let her go!!! How could you!! You let mother leave us!! Why didn't you stop her! Why!" My anger was a bright hot flame again and I turned and ran down the hill to where my mare stood cropping the grass placidly next to father's stallion. I did not want to hear my father's rational explanations, his cool logic and calm words. I wanted him to yell and scream, throw things. Show......something. He had been a rock of stability for all of us, especially mother. All I heard behind me was silence. Silence!!! Was he made of mithril!!  
  
I mounted my horse and pulled her away and back on the road. My pain would not let me be. I could not bear to see my father because when I looked at him, I just saw mother. Tears came again. I was amazed at my seemingly bottomless reserve of tears. They just never seemed to dry up.  
  
Spurring the rested mare, we galloped down the road into the rising light.  
  
I rode until once again the horse could go no further.  
  
And suddenly, I realized, I could not either.  
  
Even though I had slept, exhaustion was strangling me.  
  
Sliding off, I slapped the mare away. I stood in the road, tears still running down my face. I wavered on my feet, feeling empty and dry as a husk, in spite of my tears.  
  
I did not know what I wanted or waited for. My brain had gone numb, my thoughts empty. I sat suddenly, un-elflike, right in the middle of the dust and dropped my head into my hands. A headache began to pound behind my eyes.  
  
The sound of a horse approaching stopped a few feet from me. I did not get up, but I turned in the dirt, away from my father. I brought my hands down and rubbed them into the dust, watching it puff between my fingers and get speckled by the tears dripping off my face.  
  
A slight rustle of cloth and my father knelt in front of me, capturing my face between his hands. His eyes bored into mine, but I could not bear their pain and I dropped my gaze.  
  
"Arwen love...please...." My father pleaded with me. He pulled me close again and whispered in my hair the sweet endearing things he used to say when I was little. It had been millennia since I had heard them. He picked me up and carried me over to the side of the road where he sat me on his lap in the grass. My throat was dry and I could not say anything. I did not want to say anything.  
  
Mother was not coming back. Ever. All the tears in the world would not wash away her departure. My screaming and anguish would not change what had happened. We would go on, or we would perish from our grief.  
  
"My heart, do not shut yourself away from me, us. Your brothers and I, we, we cannot bear the thought of you mad with grief. All our hearts are broken, but not irreparably so. We have each other and you children have your long lives ahead of you."  
  
"By all the time that has been and all the time yet to turn, I love you my Arwen Undomiel, the brightest star in my soul. Do not leave me too!"  
  
And suddenly my father's grief broke the dam of his reserve and sobs burst from him in a flood of tears. Taken aback by his unexpected display, I got out of his lap and put my arms around him, pulling his head to my chest, just as he had done earlier for me. His sobs break my heart. Ada has never never cried in front of any of us. And it was my undoing. I trembled for the overwhelming wave of sadness coming from him and felt how very uncertain my emotional ground was. My father weeping like this!! The one I just said was made of mithril! The one who is always cool and decisive no matter what the situation! One to whom everyone in Rivendell looks up to and relies on for calm and sensible advice.  
  
My father weeping....weeping just as I had.  
  
And I see a glimpse of the great heart and feelings he harbors beneath his quiet, like the proverbial quiescent volcano.  
  
Mother!!  
  
I think, I will hate you for a long, long time! Some day you will have to look at what you have done to all of us, but more importantly, to him! Your love and soul mate!! How will you face him when he comes to you in Avallone!! What can you possibly say to assuage his thousand years of grief??? What could he possibly do that will break your heart as you have done to him? What will make his grief a mere drop in the sea when compared to yours?  
  
The anticipation of your meeting in the Undying Lands will make my trip there all the sweeter!  
  
I cannot wait to hear your pathetic justification of our pain!  
  
  
  
An hour goes by. The birds are more talkative around us, the breeze has picked up and shreds the fog. I rock my father slightly and kiss his bowed head. His long dark hair is a tangle in my lap as I run my hands through it, trying to straighten it.  
  
The sobs have settled into intermittent sharp intakes of breath.  
  
And finally, silence.  
  
I rest my head atop his again and find myself relaxing into sleep one more time.  
  
My poor Ada.  
  
I will never, ever hurt him the way mother has. 


End file.
